Welcome to Ryokoma [Season 2 prologue]

A woman with long sliver tresses, sat in her study as a servant entered. "Ma'am! We have finally found a lead on what happened to Mimi. We found that a woman baring a striking physical resemblance to her has been seen working at Ryokoma," the servant reported.

"Ryokoma? The restaurant managed by Rika Korosekai?" the woman glared.

"Yes. As for the girl, her name is Mimi Hanazawa and is apparently a dedicated patissier and server at the place. We were also able to find that Rika Korosekai's movements match those of the woman who accompanied Dastard when he raided Hie Cryogenics."

"Very well. Schedule a reservation at Ryokoma."

"Can I come too?" a young girl with silver hair asked as she chugged a glass of milk.

"Very well. Though stay close to me at all times."

...

A beautiful woman with long orange hair, danced as she brought some customers their meals. "Here you go Numa-kun," she smiled as she placed the food down.

"That shrimp asiago never gets old," a man sitting at the table smiled as he and his buddies began eating the meals.

The woman was 19-year old Rika Komachi. One of the owners and head chefs of the restaurant, Ryokoma. Rika was a very skilled chef, however, she also had a dark secret.

Rika's eyes narrowed as she noticed a shady looking man in a brown trench coat sneaking around outside. She cautiously went outside to confront him. "What do you want?" she glared.

The man responded by pulling out a gun, and firing at her. As the smoke cleared, the man's eyes widened as Rika was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, he felt a great pain throughout his body as he slumped down to the ground and begun to bleed out.

"That should do it," Rika thought as she shook the blood off her knife and returned to the restaurant.

Unbeknownst to many, Rika was also a former assassin, hailing from the infamous Korosekai family. The Korosekai family was originally an offshoot of Japan's most infamous assassin family, the Shibawara family, which in turn was a branch family of the more infamous Bombino family of Italy. After growing tired of killing, Rika decided to become a chef and wash herself clean of her bloody past. She enrolled in Japan's elite cooking school, Tabemono Gakuin and quickly discovered that she was a culinary prodigy. It was also there that she met Masaru Ryono, the man she would fall in love with.

"Rika! You better not have killed that man!" Masaru glared as he blocked Rika's path.

Masaru Ryono was a young 19-year old man with grey hair. He was a skilled chef that hailed from an elite culinary family and had previously been a gourmet elitist. However, Rika's influence rubbed off on him and he had eased up on his elitist ways. His social awkwardness had also begun to improve, though he would still get nervous when talking face to face with customers at times. He along with most of the staff working at Ryokoma also knew about Rika's assassin past.

"Relax, I just sliced his tendons, he's alive," Rika grumbled as she retrieved the man's gun.

"Rika, you do realize he'll die from blood loss if he isn't treated," Masaru glared.

Rika nervously checked the man's pulse. "Uh... whoops," Rika nervously chuckled.

"RIKA!"

"I'm sorry! You know it's not easy for me to get rid of my killer instincts," Rika cried as she checked to make sure no one was looking.

"I understand that assassins are coming after you, but every time you kill one of them, you risk getting caught," Masaru sighed as Rika chucked the corpse in a nearby dumpster."

"Don't worry about that. Even when I was still killing, I hardly ever got caught," Rika smiled.

"Well, at least you aren't drenched in blood. I just hope you don't get in any trouble."

...

A woman with short grey hair clad in a grey business suit and dress shoes glared at Rika as police officers examined the corpse Rika had chucked in the dumpster. "And care to explain why there's a corpse in your dumpster?" the woman growled.

The woman was Comissioner Himawari Rikuma, Masaru's 25-year old disowned older sister. She was on bad terms with both Rika and Masaru for various reasons.

"Thought that was the karaoke place's dumpster though," Rika nervously stated.

"Miss Komachi, ever since that incident where we found a notorious assassin dead in your place a month ago, various assassins have been found dead in the vicinity of your place," Himawari glared.

"Well, our place includes all the parts of the abandoned mall we haven't yet renovated, so that is a pretty big area. As for the incident in question, she was killed after getting in a scuffle with her buddies. Me and Masaru were tied up while it happened."

"I still have my suspicions. You were pretty banged up back then."

"I tried to defend myself, but they overpowered me. I'm a chef not an assassin."

"Well, we'll just have forensics analyze this corpse. The fact that notorious assassins have been turning up dead near your places means there is SOMETHING going on. Would you care to enlighten us?"

"No clue."

"Playing innocent. I know you are hiding something. Perhaps-"

"Sorry for the wait, here's your chicken pot pie with naan crust to go!" a young woman with platinum blonde hair smiled as she handed a to-go box to Himawari.

"Y- You- YOU! HOW DARE YOU TRIGGER MY PTSD!" Himawari cried as she smacked the box out of the girl's hand, sending it falling to the ground.

Himawari had always wanted to be a chef, however, after losing a cook-off to Masaru many years ago, she was expelled from Tabemono Gakuin and blacklisted from the culinary world. The dish she and Masaru had been tasked to cook was a chicken pot pie with naan crust. As such, Himawari developed PTSD and would go into a state of trauma whenever she came into contact with and/or saw a chicken pot pie.

However, the to-go box Himawari had been handed apparently did not contain a chicken pot pie of any kind. Instead, a giant maple cinnamon bun fell out of the box when it hit the ground.

"Wow, not cool girl. That was meant to be shared with everyone at the station," Rika glared.

"Y- YOU TRICKED ME!" Himawari fumed as she stormed away with her face red with embarrassment.

"But its actually a chicken pot pie made to look like a cinnamon bun," the blonde-haired girl pouted.

The girl was an employee of Ryokoma named Mimi Hanazawa. She was originally born in a parellel universe back in 1952. There, she served as a spy of Danablu (the equivalent of Denmark in that world) until an incident that led to her team getting wiped and her getting cryogenicly frozen. Her universe then merged with this one, though Mimi would not be unfrozen until 2007. Rika unintentionally freed her, and became quick friends with her, however, she was forced to refreeze her after she was nearly killed taking a hit for Rika. Mimi was then frozen until late-April of 2016 when Rika managed to find a doctor that could mend her wounds. Since then, Mimi has been happily living her days working at Ryokoma. While she has no formal culinary background, her desserts are well crafted, and she is allowed cook sweets for patrons and is viewed as a patisserie prodigy.

"No worries Mimi, you did good driving her away. Besides, it didn't get too much dirt on it," Rika smiled as she knelt down and began eating the meal. "Not bad, guess we got a new menu item," Rika grinned.

"Rika, I appreciate that you won't let food go to waste, but that doesn't mean I want you to just eat food off the ground all the time," Masaru sighed.

"If that bitch ever comes back, which sadly I think she will, we'll bill her for this mess."

Suddenly, a young woman with green hair stepped out of the restaurant. "Is the interrogation over? Then please come back inside. We need all hands on deck," she glared.

"You say that, but we can't really make much else until we have free space in one of the stoves," a girl with spray tanned skin and a bleached blonde mohawk sighed as she wrapped her arm around the green-haired girl's shoulders.

"And when did I say you could touch me?"

"Aren't we dating?"

"NO!"

The two girls were Matcha Myouchi and Waki Kasegawa. Both were chefs working at Ryokoma. Matcha was more of the voice of reason, though lacked confidence in her cooking abilities. Waki on the other hand, was an ex-assassin that specialized in poison. She was a good chef and one of Rika's closest friends. She also had a one-sided crush on Matcha and used to have long black hair before she got her makeover and passed the remedial course to get her cooking license back.

As the group headed inside, they ran into a girl with a pink mullet waiting tables. "Mimi! I need backup!" she cried.

"Aye aye!" Mimi smiled as she immediately pulled out her notepad and ran off to a table.

"My, has the Calvary arrived?" While I CAN effortlessly handle the demand of the afternoon rush, even I am but a single woman," a haughty girl with blonde hair proclaimed as she exited the kitchen with two full rolling carts of food.

"I can give you a hand," a girl with short blue hair said as she poked her head out of the kitchen.

"Nah, you've been working non-stop since we were pulled out for the interrogation. In fact, take a break, Masaru and I can handle the cooking. Zuina and Hime-chan should also take 5," Rika smiled as she relieved the blonde girl of the rolling carts.

"My female knight in shining armor, you are but a savior. Rest shall restore me to my glorious state," the blonde girl nodded as she joined the pink-haired girl in taking a break.

The blue-haired girl sighed as she begrudgingly stepped out of the kitchen and joined the two. "You're going to need us back on duty soon, considering how packed we are," she grumbled.

The blue-haired girl was none other than Itsuki Makihara, the daughter of Masaru's mentor and once one of the leading figures in the culinary industry, Saiba Makihara. After losing a high-stakes cook-off to Rika, Saiba Makihara had been banished to America where he was to spend two years cooking food at county fairs before he would be allowed to regain his cooking license. Itsuki didn't have the greatest relationship with him, due to him forcing his gourmet elitist ideals upon her. She also had a bald streak running along the left side of her head due to an incident that occured a few weeks ago.

The blonde-haired girl and pink-haired girl were Benihime Shinohime and Zuina Adler, respectively. They had teamed up with Waki and Matcha during the remedial course, and decided to work at Ryokoma after regaining their cooking licenses. Benihime was a haughty and prideful woman as well as the heir to the Shinohime family. She was the only member on the staff that was unaware that Rika was a former assassin. The reason she was kept in the dark, was due to the fact that Rika had killed her father. Benihime had sworn that she would slay her father's killer and would not forgive them under any circumstances.

Zuina on the other hand was half-Japanese and originally hailed from a poor farm in the UK. After the death of her parents, her sister, the notorious blackmailer and gourmet elitist, Rebelle Milverton Adler, secured the financial capitol for them to move to Japan and start a new life. Zuina was a vegetarian and enjoyed gardening. She was also very adamant on making things affordable to the masses. Like Matcha, she was one of the more level-headed members of the Ryokoma crew.

...

Everyone let out a sigh of relief as the last customer of the night left. "Ugh, I think that might have been our busiest day yet," Rika groaned.

"Hardly, but I imagine more days like that are to come. Business is booming and thanks to the second floor seating. Even that arcade area you had installed has been adding to our profits," Masaru stated as he slumped into a booth.

"Told you that arcade would do well. Speaking of which, our place's 6-month anniversary is fast approaching; so now's the right time to get the renovation team going on something new."

Ryokoma was originally renovated from a small portion of a large abandoned mall. Rika and Masaru had been able to make the abandoned mall their own, thanks to Masaru graduating at the top of the class at Tabemono Gakuin, and thus being granted the right to choose the location of his restaurant and no charge. While renovating the entire mall, was not included in the costs, that didn't stop Rika from wanting to turn the entire mall into one giant restaurant.

"If I recall correctly, you were adamant about a movie theater," Matcha grumbled.

"That'd be perfect! Then we could serve popcorn and watch movies after work," Mimi smiled.

"It would also bring in a host of other problems. We would then need to modify our business hours, secure movies to show, it would be a mess!" Itsuki glared.

"Considering we're already working ourselves to the bone just handle our main business, adding a movie theater would just make things harder than not," Zuina sighed.

"I could always handle the night shift," Rika smiled.

"And if you're too tired, then what?" Matcha glared.

"I say it's time to let democracy speak and hold a vote," Benihime suggested.

"A wise suggestion. We shall vote on whether to focus on renovating the theatre. If it wins, we do it, and if not, we discuss the other ideas," Masaru nodded.

The proposal ended up failing on a 5 to 3 vote. "It is regrettable, my female knight, that your idea go down in defeat, but since the majority wishes not to embark on such an endeavor, I must side with them," Benihime sighed.

"Well, no worries. Even if you did side with us it would have been a tie. Guess I'll push for the pool," Rika sighed.

"Sounds like you just replaced one unreasonable request with another," Matcha growled.

"I'm not suggesting a whole damn water park, though maybe in the future, anyway I was just thinking it could be a pool on the second floor with a clear retractable roof."

"That is somewhat more manageable," Masaru noted.

"Why that is a fine idea indeed! I can already picture a fine luxury poolside dining area on a moonlit night," Benihime mused.

"Who says it needs to be luxury? If we're gonna have a pool, it needs to be affordable to families," Zuina argued.

"This means we'd likely need to offer guests a changing room too," Itsuki grumbled.

"So? I have plans for a gym as well, so might as well get the pool and locker rooms going. Maybe we could even finish before the Olympics if we get started tomorrow," Rika giddily smiled.

"Rika, the Olympics will be starting in less than a week! That and we've also got some massive reservations lined up in preparation for them. Speaking of which, members of the Ginkawa family will be dining here tomorrow to sample our meals in preparation for a major event they'll be holding here with the national Olympic team," Masaru stated.

"G- GINKAWA!? They're like one of the richest families in the whole world!"

"Richest by some metrics, in fact," Benihime chimed.

"As such, we will be closing a few hours early in order to cater to the Ginkawas. Rest assured, the woman I spoke with assured me that we would be compensated for our early closure," Itsuki stated.

"Lovely, a full day of work even though we'll be closing early. Anyway, let's vote on the pool so we can go home and get some sleep," Waki grumbled.

The pool ended up being approved on a 6 to 2 vote, much to Rika's pleasure. "I'm surprised you ended up voting for the pool," Matcha said to Masaru.

"I think it's relatively reasonable, even if we need to put in a locker room as well," Masaru replied. "And with that, rest up. We have a big day tomorrow."